Name's Jason Thibeault. I'm an IT guy, skeptic, feminist, gamer and atheist, and love OSS, science of all stripes (especially space-related stuff), and debating on-line and off. I enjoy a good bit of whargarbl now and again, and will occasionally even seek it out. I am also apparently responsible for the death of common sense on the internet. My bad.

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EVENTS

Sun vomits forth giant prominence

Think about the scale of this particular flare, which was captured by NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory yesterday. I know it’s hard to imagine, with it zoomed in like this, but this is absolutely immense. Eyeballing it against a “size of stars” image I have up on the wall, I’d say both ends of this flare are at least as wide as Wolf 359, a distant red dwarf star. And it’s probably dozens of times wider than Earth.

It’s a good damn thing this flare isn’t aimed anywhere toward us. Sure, our magnetosphere could probably shield us, but not without repercussions.

As Troythulu and I were discussing on Twitter when he linked this, it’s absolutely no wonder to me that people would worship the sun, a tangible, massive, and powerful entity, without which life couldn’t exist here. Compared to other religions, I totally get sun worship.

It’s a good damn thing this flare isn’t aimed anywhere toward us. Sure, our magnetosphere could probably shield us, but not without repercussions.

Sometime sooner or later, probably sooner, one of those prominences will be heading our way. It’ll probably knock out GPS, communications, and other satellites, and could even shut down electrical power grids. High currents in the magnetosphere can induce high currents in power lines, blowing out electric transformers and power stations. The damage to satellites and power grids could be very expensive and disruptive.

Sometime sooner or later, probably sooner, one of those prominences will be heading our way. It’ll probably knock out GPS, communications, and other satellites, and could even shut down electrical power grids. High currents in the magnetosphere can induce high currents in power lines, blowing out electric transformers and power stations. The damage to satellites and power grids could be very expensive and disruptive.

Given enough time all major transmission lines will be underground HVDC (because of renewables), transformers will be properly protected, all long distance communications will be fibre optic, and a solar flare will cause a bit of a nuisance to people still using GPS. But if the flare hit us in the next couple of decades, it would be tough.

Even more, the Earth could not exist in the form that it has without the Sun. Notice that it isn’t mostly hydrogen or helium, like Jupiter or Saturn, and that it isn’t largely water, either. That comes from forming where all these volatile materials would get boiled off.